Peadar O'Donnell

Peadar O'Donnell (22 February 1893-13 May 1986) was a Sinn Fein TD from County Donegal from 27 August 1923 to 9 June 1927. O'Donnell was a leader of the socialist faction of the Irish republican movement, and, during the 1920s and 1930s, he failed to realign the IRA Army Council with full-blooded socialism, resulting in his departure from the IRA in 1934.

Biography
Peadar O'Donnell was born in Cloghanlea, County Donegal, Ireland on 22 February 1893, and he joined the ITGWU and the socialist movement in 1918. After failing to organize an Irish Citizen Army unit in Derry, he joined the IRA during the Irish War of Independence, and he led guerrilla activities in County Londonderry and Donegal, raiding RIC and British Army barracks. During the Irish Civil War, he sided with the anti-Treaty IRA, and he was captured during the Battle of Dublin in 1922. In 1923, while still in prison, he was elected a Sinn Fein TD for Donegal, and he was released from internment in 1924. He became a member of the IRA Army Council and became the new editor of the Irish republican newspaper An Phoblacht in June 1925, trying unsuccessfully to steer the IRA towards full-blooded socialism. During the 1930s, as the IRA contemplated an uprising against W.T. Cosgrave's government, O'Donnell opposed IRA Chief-of-Staff Moss Twomey's militant republicanism and attempted to pull the IRA leftwards into political activism, towards radical social and economic change. However, the anti-socialist Sean Russell took over the leadership of the Army Council, causing O'Donnell to leave the IRA in 1934 and found the communist Republican Congress organization. The Republican Congress spearheaded attacks on the Blueshirts in Dublin, and O'Donnell refused to turn it into a party lest it split the vote with the Communist Party of Ireland. He encouraged fellow republicans to fight for Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and he later opposed the Vietnam War during the 1960s. He died in 1986.